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Ford’s love affair with EVs softens as profitability and consumer trends take focus

Credit: Ford Motor Co.

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Update: headline updated to show Ford is still committed to EVs, just at a less intense rate.

Ford’s love affair with EVs is softening, the automaker announced today, as it shifted plans for its next few vehicles to be hybrid-electric instead of fully electric.

The move comes as profitability and consumer trends are taking focus. Ford has struggled to get its head above water in terms of making money on its EVs, scaling back its investment amount on one occasion and adjusting its strategy on another.

Consumers are also showing more interest in hybrids than pure EVs. Studies have shown that hybrid drivers are among the most satisfied on the road, as a recent survey from ACSI displayed increased satisfaction from those drivers over pure EV and gas engine owners.

Ford is taking steps to pull back from its increased focus on EVs and instead go into a new direction. “We’re committed to creating long-term value by building a competitive and profitable business,” Ford’s Vice Chair and CFO John Lawler said. “With pricing and margin compression, we’ve made the decision to adjust our product and technology roadmap and industrial footprint to meet our goal of reaching positive EBIT within the first 12 months of launch for all new models.”

How is Ford’s Strategy Changing?

Ford’s new strategy will see its next three-row SUVs utilize hybrid technologies. It also wants to adjust the speed at which electric vehicle models are released, hoping to be more aligned with customer adoption instead of keeping pace with industry leaders.

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Tesla sells well, but Ford, even though it has been the number two brand in the U.S. for EVs, has not been able to keep pace. Tesla, simply put, is head and shoulders above everyone in the market when it comes to reliability, tech, and charging infrastructure. Although Ford has adopted Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) and gained access to the Supercharger Network, consumers still lean toward the Model 3 and Model Y, two vehicles that have dominated the market for the past several years.

Ford is taking a $400 million non-cash charge for the write-down of certain product-specific manufacturing assets for all previously planned all-electric SUVs. The company will no longer build these models, it said.

Focus on Commercial EVs

Ford will still be building EVs, but its entire game plan will be shifting significantly. Ford’s next-gen EVs will be built at the Ohio Assembly Plant in 2026 and will start with a commercial van.

The E-Transit will still be produced, as it is the best-selling commercial EV van in the country. It also helps business owners keep their bottom line as it has positive impacts on the total cost of ownership.

A New, Low-Cost, High Efficiency EV

Ford will bring a new mid-sized EV pickup to market in 2027 with more range, utility, and useability. It will be the first vehicle that comes as a result of the platform developed by the Ford Skunkworks team that the company established in 2022.

The platform developed by the Skunkworks team will yield more EVs in “multiple vehicle styles” and is designed to scale quickly thanks to its “minimal complexity.”

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A new Electric Truck

Ford’s F-150 Lightning was the best-selling EV truck for several months, although Cybertruck overtook it in June. Ford planned to bring a new truck to market next year, labeling it the “T3.” However, this has been pushed back.

Ford Project T3 – its next-gen pickup- is coming in 2025

Ford will now bring the T3 pickup to market in the latter half of 2027. This will offer more features and experiences than any other Ford truck, including upgraded bi-directional charging and advanced aerodynamics. It will be built at the BlueOval City Electric Truck Center in Tennessee.

Overall, Ford’s shift in strategy is probably for the better, considering its business was quite literally hemorrhaging money. It is important that it develops and builds EVs, as many customers are still in the market for one and now prefer that powertrain to any other.

However, in the grand scheme, hybrids have taken over as the most desirable powertrain, which is pushing Ford to make this shift in the name of making money and going with what consumers want.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Elon Musk

How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts

Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.

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Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.

The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.



Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.

For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.

The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car

Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.

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Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)
Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)

The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.

The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.

The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.


Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.

The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.

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How Tesla’s Roadster fan system and thrusters are built to dominate the corners

Tesla’s Roadster uses fans, active wings and cold gas thrusters to create grip at any speed.

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The Roadster’s rear wing, one of the aerodynamic elements Tesla pairs with a fan-based downforce system. (Image: Tesla)
The Roadster’s rear wing, one of the aerodynamic elements Tesla pairs with a fan-based downforce system. (Image: Tesla)

Tesla’s new Roadster is best known for flipping through the air in Texas, but the technology that matters most for a race track is the stuff that keeps it on the ground. Tesla’s Roadster page describes a multi-mode fan and ground sealing system that acts as a downforce generator, pulling air out from beneath the car. Tesla says it provides enough suction to hold the vehicle upside down, even when stationary.

That is the key difference from the wings and diffusers on a normal supercar. Conventional aero only makes downforce when the car is moving, and it grows with speed, so a car has the least grip in the slow corners and under hard braking. A fan system makes downforce at any speed. Tesla’s patent, which we covered last year, describes fans and deployable skirts that create sealed or partially sealed regions under the car, with the fans extracting air to lower the pressure and increase grip and stability.


Tesla pairs that with active wings, a next generation steer by wire system and a Track Mode that lowers the car and changes the suspension, with high downforce and low drag settings for the circuit. To keep weight down, Tesla points to magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber, manual controls and a fixed seat position, which it says lets the car respond to driver inputs almost instantly.

Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds

The cold gas thrusters are the other half. On the Thrust version they sit at the rear and Tesla says they take the car from 0 to 60 mph in under 0.9 seconds, while the Rocket version adds perimeter thrusters for forward, upward and lateral rotational movement. Tesla says the all electric actuators make micro adjustments within a fraction of a second.

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Musk has been talking about records for years. In June 2019 he said, “We’re going to do things with the new Roadster that are kind of unfair to other cars.” That September, when a follower asked whether the Roadster would beat the Nürburgring production car record, he replied with one word, “Absolutely,” as we reported at the time. In February 2024 he said Tesla had “radically increased the design goals” for the car and that its sub one second 0 to 60 time would be “the least interesting part.”

There are caveats. Tesla has not published a lap time or a verified cornering figure, so the record talk is still a promise rather than a result. Tesla also says the car is not approved for public road use, and the thruster features are limited to the Rocket trim, which is invite only. Fan cars have also been banned or withdrawn before, and getting a sealed underbody to work on a rough public road is a harder problem than on a smooth track. The first real test will be an official lap at a circuit.

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